Fifty-One Tales | Page 6

he saw a man darkening the wood
of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation
wormholes in it.
And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile
and looked on critically.

And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's
hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning
face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary and
sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him.

THE LITTLE CITY
I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when I
suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed to
have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it golden,
so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk in the
foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one could
tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the golden
smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships.
All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of the
hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already the
birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every omen
boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an aureate
bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward rampart of
Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared unconcernedly
seawards.
And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where they
sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose like
crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there would
be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills.

THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS
Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the grey
ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break his staff
and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, hearing the
sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the bones of her
children and weeps for the things she has done.

"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until
they grow old and leave us to go among the myths.
"We are the most imperishable mountains."
And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on crag
and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon
Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and
looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the
mountains.
"Ye pass away," said the mountains.
And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied,
"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable fields
Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon song which
the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial fields. His
hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our fields were of
silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, with head
tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and stares from our
tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future wonderful wars rage
in the creases and the folds of the togas that cover the knees of the
gods."

THE WORM AND THE ANGEL
As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel.
And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths and
maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in their
chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far wars
and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and the pomp
of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew.
And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food."

"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the
angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?"
And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for
three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its
melody was ringing in his head.

THE SONGLESS COUNTRY
The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. And
he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish songs to
sing to itself at evening.
And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish
songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the fireside."
And for some days he made for them aimless songs such as